The heat is already oppressive; the horses stretch their necks to drink, their nostrils wide, sniffing the stagnant water. The spahis halt for a moment to take counsel; they dismount in order to moisten their hats and bathe their foreheads. Suddenly in the distance dull sounds are heard, like the noise of enormous drums all beaten simultaneously. “It is the big tom-toms,” said Sergeant Muller, who had some experience of negro warfare. Instinctively all the men who had dismounted made for their horses. But a black head had just raised itself above the herbage. An old Marabout had made with his skinny arm a grotesque signal, like a magic order addressed to the reeds of the marsh. A hail of lead showered down upon the spahis. * * * * * The shots, steadily and carefully aimed from the shelter of the ambuscade, had all told. Five or six horses had dropped. The remainder, startled and maddened, reared and threw their wounded riders. Jean, also, had sunk to the ground with a bullet through his loins. At the same time, thirty sinister faces emerged from the grass; thirty black demons, covered with mud, bounded out, gnashing their white teeth like enraged monkeys. O heroic combat, such as Homer might have sung, but which will remain unrecorded, unknown to fame, like so many of these far-away African frays. The poor spahis, in their fight to the death, performed prodigies of strength and valour. Fighting had on them the infuriating effect, which it produces on all such as are brave by nature. They sold their lives dearly, these men, all of whom were young, vigorous, and inured to war. In a few years they will be forgotten, even at St Louis. Who will ever mention their names, the names of those who fell in the land of Diambour, on the plains of Dialakar? * * * * * Meanwhile the sound of the great war-drums was drawing ever nearer. Suddenly, while the mêlée was still proceeding, the spahis saw as in a dream, a great company of negroes passing by over the hill; warriors half naked, covered with grigris, were doubling in the direction of Dialdé in disorderly hordes. They had with them enormous war-drums, which four men together could hardly drag along. Their lean desert horses, seemingly full of fire and fury, were decked with tawdry harness, spangled with copper, their long tails and manes stained blood-red. It was a fantastic, demoniac procession, an African nightmare, swifter than the wind. Boubakar-Ségou was passing. He was on his way to hurl himself on the French forces. He passed, paying no attention to the spahis, leaving them to the body of men who had lain in ambush for them, and were completing the work of exterminating them. The spahis were being driven steadily back, away from the grass and water on to the arid sands, where a more overwhelming heat and an intenser glare would the sooner exhaust them.